IBEW Unity Fund Critical to Fighting Anti-Worker Agenda

The Koch brothers are trying to buy elections. Anti-labor lobbyists helped defeat VW workers’ effort to organize in Tennessee. And right-to-work may be coming to states like Missouri, Ohio and Maine if anti-union lawmakers succeed in carrying out their corporate donors’ wishes.

The Koch brothers are trying to buy elections. Anti-labor lobbyists helped defeat VW workers’ effort to organize in Tennessee. And right-to-work may be coming to states like Missouri, Ohio and Maine if anti-union lawmakers succeed in carrying out their corporate donors’ wishes.

The enemies of working families have deep pockets we can never match.

But collectively we can make a difference, and that’s why the IBEW International Officers created the Unity Fund in 2011 – to give local front-line activists vital resources in their efforts to defend hard-won gains for working families across the U.S. Since then, members have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to help take on anti-union lawmakers in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and beyond.

But the fight is getting tougher. Americans for Prosperity – an arm of brothers Charles and David Koch’s massive anti-worker network – spent nearly $130 million in 2012’s election season alone. Right now in Missouri, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Chamber of Commerce and other well-funded groups are piling on the pressure to pass right-to-work in the very state where the IBEW was founded.

“Anti-union forces may have piles of cash at their disposal, but we have the backing of hundreds of thousands of our brave brothers and sisters who are saying ‘enough’ to corporate power plays,” said IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill. “Members’ donations, however modest, will go a long way in helping protect our rights and our way of life.”

In three years, the Unity Fund has contributed more than $700,000 to local unions embroiled in legislative fights to save collective bargaining and other keystones of the middle class.

“I am now asking that we increase our efforts as the needs continue to grow,” President Hill wrote in a letter to all local union leaders across the U.S.:

It is my goal that we collect $1 million annually from our local unions to provide the necessary resources to be effective in our response to these fights.

Even if your local is not currently subject to such activities, I encourage you to contribute in the name of solidarity, as we are all in this together.